Who is Saigyo

Saigyō Hōshi (西行法師, 1118 – March 23, 1190) was a famous Japanese poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura period.

Biography

Born Satō Norikiyo (佐藤義清) in Kyoto to a noble family, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the age of Mappō, Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. These cultural shifts during his lifetime led to a sense of melancholy in his poetry. As a youth, he worked as a guard to retired Emperor Toba, but in 1140 at age 22, for reasons now unknown, he quit worldly life to become a monk, taking the religious name En'i (円位).

He later took the pen name Saigyō (西行), meaning “W...
Read Full Biography of Saigyo


Saigyo Poems

  • Having Seen Them Long
    Having seen them long,
    I hold the flowers so dear
    That when they scatter
    I find it all the more sad ...
  • How Wonderful
    How wonderful, that
    Her heart
    Should show me kindness;
    And of all the numberless folk, ...
  • Thought I Was Free
    Thought I was free
    of passion, so this melancholy
    comes as surprise:
    a woodcock shoots up from the marsh ...
  • Unbroken Gloom.
    times when unbroken
    gloom is over all our world
    over which still
    sits the ever brilliant moon ...
  • Limitations Gone
    limitations gone
    since my mind fixed on the moon
    clarity and serenity
    make something for which ...
Read All Poems


Top 10 most used topics by Saigyo

Moon 5 Wind 3 Grief 2 Sad 2 Autumn 2 Heart 2 Mountain 2 Hold 1 Cloud 1 Wild 1


Saigyo Quotes

Read All Quotes


Comments about Saigyo

0rpheusshould: tightly held by rocks through winter, the ice today begins to come undone: a way-seeker also is the water, melting, murmuring from the moss. saigyo, mirror for the moon
Mkimdorman: the willow is bare the clear stream has dried, and stones lie scattered here and there -saigyō (tr. gail sher)
Shirasagih2: goodbye innocence
Jumphavoc: obito is such a nice person. he let fiesta 3-0 graveyard shift :)
Lumaacee: why is this game so lgbt friendly like look at the pose lol
Read All Comments


Write your comment about Saigyo


Poem of the day

Andrew Lang Poem
Ballade Of The Midnight Forest
 by Andrew Lang

Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;
The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,
And wolves still dread Diana roaming free
In secret woodland with her company.
'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,
...

Read complete poem

Popular Poets